Strongly disagree; the first cold war was much more complex, changing, and varied than we paint it as, and looking at and studying from it is extremely important. But the core problem remains.
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Replying to @BeijingPalmer
Everything is more complex than the story about it. The cold war was an improvised reaction to a transformative technological leap (nuclear weapons) and had a genuine, transnational ideological core that is simply missing from the plain vanilla great power conflict with China
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Replying to @Pinboard @BeijingPalmer
If you want that rich, genuine Cold War™ flavor, you need an opponent whose goal is for-real world domination. Does anybody seriously think this about China? That the ultimate goal is to impose Xi Jinping Thought on Uruguay?
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Replying to @Pinboard @BeijingPalmer
It got dialed back over time, but in the fifties you could say that international socialism was the shining future of humanity, and that communism was an achievable goal, though the road would be hard. And you could point to lots of persuasive evidence. What's the equivalent now?
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Replying to @Pinboard
I mean, where was the evidence for that at the peak of the Cold War in, say, 1979?
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Replying to @BeijingPalmer
It was a much harder sell in 1979. But there was at least a coherent story of how we got there, and why the world was split into two irreconcilable camps that needed to struggle, etc. I'm asking what that compelling transnational story is for China now
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Replying to @Pinboard
'The right to speak and think freely is under threat by a Chinese Communist Party that wishes to crush all forms of opposition to itself, not just inside its own borders but outside.' There's your story.
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Replying to @BeijingPalmer
I think you misunderstood me. I mean what story does China tell about the good vs. evil divide that would be the prerequisite to a "cold war II". The Soviet story was, man everywhere is in chains and we are the first socialist state in history, join us in a struggle of liberation
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Replying to @Pinboard @BeijingPalmer
You could read this in Tokyo or Lima and think, there's some solid points being made here, let's throw off the shackles of the imperialist oppressors. Are we supposed to worry that radical students in Berlin are going to crack open a tome of Xi Jinping and think, "ah-the future!"
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Replying to @Pinboard @BeijingPalmer
Maybe, for Evo, but Abe is thinking full scale rearmament from that
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You lost me. I was thinking of Shining Path and the Red Army faction.
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Replying to @Pinboard @BeijingPalmer
The closer a country is to the PRC, the more pissed off the left is at the PRC. Their influence comes from the economic heft.
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